"It's Cheaper to Send Someone to Penn State Than to State Pen!" Interesting commentary on the state of affairs in California. Check it out at The Irascible Professor. Link from the Invisible Adjunct.
When a society spends so much more on its tools of coercion than it does on its tools of nurturing..that is a society in decline. And don't feel smug about Canada being different...the neo-cons that control a good part of the federal agenda, and the provincial agenda in all of the larger provinces are busily working to bring about the same results here.